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Two of the three sets of twins at our house. One set of cat twins and one set of human twins. The third set is the twins’ older brothers who are just less than two years apart in age so we jokingly refer to them as the oldest set of twins.

We love the Dr Who style streetlights on our section.

Facing directly South, Redwood trees line the fence.

The Redwoods provide shade for the lizards, snakes and cats.

Welcome home.

Grab a blanket if you get chilly.

Pumpkin buckets will be used by the boys for Trick or Treating on Halloween.

While the sun streams down in California, a Hurricane causes devastation in the Eastern United States.

One of the terrible hurricane stories that is currently airing on T.V.

We’re a multi LCD TV family even though the UN’s Helen Clark says that’s a little naughty and we only need so many LCD TV’s.¬†

John Key is molded in the tradition of previous National Prime Minister: the 35th Prime Minister of New Zealand – Jim Bolger.Bolger was elected in 1990 on the promise of delivering a ‘Decent Society’.Bolger wasn’t a traditional conservative – he had liberal views (particularly on Waitangi and sovereignty issues).Immediately and unfortunately upon his election, Bolger had to deal with the bail-out of BNZ and the dispassionate and rabid right wing Fnance Minister Richardson. Though Bolger understood fiscal restraint, he was ultimately unhappy with Richardson who garroted Social Welfare within days of the 1990 election.These events tilled fertile ground for the Fifth Labour government with socialist leanings. The standard has now been set for a larger and more intrusive central government than was previously the case as much of New Zealand Zealand pines for ‘the “good old days”, when Clark and Cullen held the reins.A reminder here: The Fourth Labour Government with it’s implementation of “Rogernomics”, was fiscally further to the right than the current National Government.Though liberal in some respects, like Bolger, Key tends to the right of his caucus colleagues.However many of Key’s political peers have been raised in a more liberal environment, courtesy of the long tenure of the Fifth Labour government. This is moving Key more to the right wing of¬† National. Key’s political instincts are now under threat by this. The most telling recent example of this was the age/alcohol consumption vote. Key was certain the numbers within national would move the age of off and on license consumption back to 20.The vote was overwhelmingly in favour of retaining the status quo.Henceforth, I doubt Key can really be sure of where the support lies on many non-fiscal issues. Electorate MP’s with thin majorities will be looking to Garner, Gower, Katherine Ryan et al and there may be frequent off message deviations by these MP’s. So can Key be sure of adequate support into the next election ?Brian Edwards casts doubt on this with this post:http://brianedwardsmedia.co.nz/2012/10/5-on-key-to-step-down-before-the-middle-of-next-year-thanks/I disagree with Edward’s statement that Key will stand down before the next election and that Key looks tired.Key is National’s best brand. Though perhaps tired, he still reeks of the Golden Boy persona that the baby-boomers love.This is why the Greens mainly attack by belittling ‘Planet Key’. The attacks are insubstantial and ‘Brand Key’ will withstand many batterings through to the next election.Key’s plans for the next term and his strategic exit will be fully formulated but his nearest and dearest political cronies will have yet to glimpse the planned execution. He’ll take the electorate by surprise when he does decide to go as opposed to Clark’s predictable resignation. Key is a master strategist, even more so than former PM Helen Clark.Clark never shifted off a core message. This apparent arrogance sunk her in the end. Key has never moved from the “lower tax” and “smaller government” core message but he has been able to cope with a certain amount of “green grooming”,by the likes of Nikki Kaye.He has the ability to play into the opposite end of the court for a greater percentage of possession.¬† My prediction is Key will stay through the next election. He’ll leave as soon a the ink is dry on the Coalition agreements and after putting the boot into the teachers’ Unions one final time.Replacement prediction ?Crusher as leader, Ryall as deputy.

I am a reformed hippy. I would have opted for a natural birth in my early thirties. Four C-sections later, I still feel a little ripped off, but I console myself with the thought that I could breast feed a small African tribe should I be called up to do so.¬†

It’s swings and roundabouts with childbearing. My advice is just do your own research and listen to your Mama Bear instinct before you let anyone cut you open. However you very rarely have any choice.

Sometimes I insert the word ‘perineum’ into a sentence to see if I can catch people flinching:As in: ” Did you see my perineum? I just had it pruned,”” It’s right over there next to the shrub roses”. ” The agapanthus”, I say; my visitor smiles in relief and we carry on around the garden.Yell it out at a wedding breakfast for a real showstopper. During the toasts.

I rescued this guy from our patio this morning. Size of a large earthworm.¬† No rattle on the end so I didn’t have to worry about gloving up to throw him into the bushes. Even the larger ones don’t bother me to touch.¬† Apparently I bailed up my Mum with a bucket of earthworms when I was a toddler, so I was perhaps born without an aversion to the slimy critters. Probably a Sharp Tailed snake.

‘e’s named after a certain New Zealand politician. No offence to Big Trev. it takes a certain skill to persist in politics with so many years and make so many enemies that you aren’t seen as ineffectual as you might be in reality.

Building more suburbs in rural areas far from city centres will not make housing more affordable or New Zealand‚Äôs cities more liveable, Green Party housing spokesperson Holly Walker said today.

Of course Holly would say that. She doesn’t have children or any property investment nous.What the hell are the Greens thinking in using Holly to front some kind of anti-housing campaign? It’s a terrible fit. You have to have inhabited a variety of dwellings to appreciate need for diversity and my bet is Holly is in the initial throes of the “interesting flatting circumstances”, stage. Lucky girl, I loved our Wellington warehouse flat we lived in for years. You’re pushing barrows of dung uphill, with this, Holly. Many families want the traditional half acre dwelling that is a prime culprit in urban sprawl. That’s what we grew up with.As dire and anti-gGaia as the concept might seem, we all want our children to reap the benefits of the half acre paradise.This doesn’t happen in your bog-standard, skody, infill-housing project.My family lives amidst urban sprawl. To be accurate, we live in the foothills of a U.S mountain where¬† we frequently see wild deer, coyotes, squirrels, gophers, racoons, and F*ckin Skunks.I do indeed preface certain animals with that particular verb. Anything that eats cat biscuits and periodically sprays up an unholy stench on your deck is particularly deserving.¬†

The F*ckin Skunk lives to the left; A lizard as big as my hand to the right.Many species coexist happily in suburban U.S. despite housing sprawl. Bart (Bay Area rail Transport) pulls hundreds of thousands of workers from the Greater Bay Area into San Francisco weekly.

JJ Lawrence: The split liver child. The boy that died because his Mum handed him over to some psycho to be killed.

The child abuse that happens in New Zealand generally happens when bad Mums leave their kids with hopeless bastards that use the kids as punching bags.I remember when this awful story first hit the headlines in 2011:

Ruhe told the court that Ms Lawrence had been a loving mother who always made JJ her “number one priority”.

that’s the testimony from the imprisoned biological Dad. Leaving aside the fact that the Mum seems to be addicted to hooking up with criminals; the testimony is total rubbish because loving Mums don’t¬† hand their kids over to be killed by new boyfriends.

Here’s hoping Paula Benefit’s cronies are cracking down on sad-ass cases like this family to prevent future child murders.

I have friends who ask me: “But what’s wrong with socialism”. Truth be told, it’s hard to explain. Wealth distribution is quite a compelling argument if you are impoverished to any degree. And I was a left-winger from way back, born wearing doc-martens and a belief that a lack of money meant instant moral superiority.I was a sook though so I’d never protest or anything hard out. However, one thing to another and I changed my political stripes. This dude says it better than I can:

Bodyform Feminine hygiene products came in for a pasting recently by ‘Richard’ who posted this on their facebook wall:

The company responded with a rebuttal reminiscent of “You Can’t handle the truth”: Classic

Weird fact #1 When I first arrived in the states I wanted to be prepared for every contingency. You know, just in case I was ever subjected to a ‘Horse-Riding Period’. Being a female angel, I thought there was every chance I could fall victim to this phenomenon one day. So I subjected myself to a relatively traumatic and drawn-out shopping experience as I stared at rows an rows of applicator thingy’s. Whole aisles dedicated to touch free ‘feminine hygiene products’. But, hardly any “umm, err”, ‘products’ without a stoopid cardboard tube. In America it would seem that if you go ‘applicator commando’, you could very well be in moral peril.